TB--SEASON EIGHT EPISODE 4---Tender Wounds
by angie9281
Summary: During a welcome lull in the action and drama that is their lives, Sookie has a heart to heart with her viking, who is struggling to deal with the guilt and pain he has after past and recent events dealing with her. Unused to seeing him in such a state, she can only hope she can snap him out of this fink and help herself as well as him move on with their lives. Or say goodbye.
1. Chapter 1

**PART ONE**

 **Chapter 1**

She hated having to go to work, several days after her latest brush with danger. That she hadn't seen nor heard from him in that time concerned him. He had brushed off the torment inflicted upon him with his usual swagger and yet, she had sensed something that night when they returned to her home that something had changed. In both herself and him. She had allowed herself to admit her true feelings and already they had slept together. Yet, something had changed again in their ever complicated relationship and she was sorely tempted to make the drive to Shreveport to see what the matter was. And it didn't surprise her to find herself doing just that. She was concerned, especially knowing how glad he was to be with her again and though still taking things somewhat slow, after that one night together, they had both known it was what the both needed and wanted after so much loss and heartbreak in both their lives. When she arrived at the bar, she went straight to where she saw Ginger and Pam serving drinks to the lust filled humans and vamps alike. Ignoring the cat calls she received and being forced to knee one man in the groin as she reached the bar, a amused looking Pam sniggered as the man writhed on the ground.

"Tinkerbell ain't messing around, is she?" Pam drawled, her smirk fading fast. "I know why you are here, but he ain't here and he won't let me in the house either. Been forced to go to ground here at the bar, which I don't mind….but…." Pam didn't want to let on that she was as worried as Sookie was. "It's almost as bad as it was when you went to Faery for a year. He never gave up looking for you and I think he probably spent millions on trying to find you. Bill didn't you know….." Pam was quick to add that little twist to the gut to Sookie, who knew all to well, looking back, how duplicitous Bill had been. In the end, though, she had seen the goodness in him, his desire to meet his family in the afterlife and was all too happy, deep down, to be able to give that to him. So much pain and suffering in his life as well, she reminded herself during the times ha behaved like a asshole…..but now to the Viking.

"I know I've been to your house before but I never knew just where it was….." Sookie replied, slapping her forehead as she remembered. She could teleport herself wherever she wished. "OMG, I keep forgetting…..but I had hoped to find him here first and driving…..it clears my mind a little bit…..could I have the address? You know I wouldn't give it up to anyone….my vault?" she said the last two words, tapping a finger at her temple like Pam had done to her the first night they had met. Though she looked hesitant, Pam did know Sookie well enough that she wouldn't reveal anything sacred or secret to strangers. Besides, the house they lived in was in a secure location and more than adequately protected from both normal and supernatural forces to the best of the ability of those who had built the house…or father mansion slash fortress. As slick as it looked, there was comfort within those walls, Sookie knew that first hand as she had been brought there to recuperate after her beating by her now dead ex. That she had rested comfortable in a guest room that had been very modern styled and yet there was that regal air, charm to it she hadn't been able to describe. She had felt safe there, safer than she had in her own home and even now, she had little jabs of fear in her gut when she returned to her house after work. Though at least she usually had company but it was clear that said company was having issues. Considering how much pride he had, it wasn't surprising to her he was trying to deal with his demons himself. But she was about to intervene

"We keep our location on a need to know basis. " Pam said as she handed Sookie a scrap of paper she had written on. "I had your name put on the list so you should be able to enter without trouble. And if you are given trouble, well, you can just use your little magic to pop straight into the house." Pam watched the girl stuff the paper in a jeans pocket.

"Thanks, Pam." Sookie said as she turned to leave through the maddening crowd but her new friend called her name. "What?" she asked, turning to face the bar again.

"If he doesn't tell even you what's wrong, well, we may have a bigger problem than he thought. He has always confided in me and now….he's pushed me away…you may be our only shot. don't fuck it up." she added with her typical snark, not wanting to appear too concerned, she preferred putting on a callous, unfeeling persona but Sookie had known there was more to her than met the eye and with a grim nod, she left and using the GPS on her phone, was soon pulling up to a gate that was akin to a prison gate. There was a lone human working in the little booth there, a gate shut tight to prevent anyone from simply driving through and as she drove up to the window, she was intimidated by the well armed man in the little booth and knew that even though a human, by dipping into his mind briefly, he was well trained and disciplined enough to take on any foe that dared trespass here. Putting on a friendly smile, she was relieved as he returned the smile as she gave her name and he went to look on a laptops screen and after pushing a few buttons, gave her a nod and with the push of a button, the door opened,

"it's a very short list he's got for visitors, you must be something special." the guard commented making small chit chat. He looked like he would have chatted with her some more but she instead offered a thank you and drove into the gated community, of which the houses were spread few and far between and she took note of cameras everywhere. How there could only be one person on duty at a time as a mystery, though she had to assume that there was more security measures here than she suspected. And those measures, of course would be kept secret, even from her. Not that she couldn't take a peek in the guy's mind, or any other staff that was likely working this place…her thoughts trailed off a she reached the gates of the manor she had been at not too long ago. And though the gates were locked-and electrified, she surmised as her power sensed it from afar, she blinked herself straight into the foyer of the home, making a beeline to where she knew she would likely find him. And down in the underground level of the manor, she came to a row of rooms, all with key fob entry panels there. Undeterred, she used her magic to pop herself past the door and entered a room she had always, at least in the back of her mind, had wondered about. The room was sparsely furnished and yet very modern. Grey paint on the walls and white on the ceiling, the floor was done in a thin black carpeting. Good to hide blood, she thought to herself, trying to find something to smile about, her worry still at a high level. And there she saw both a bed and a coffin, though she was drawn immediately to the bed, for even in the dark, she found her eyesight much improved with her increased power. Another thing that was good to know, she thought to herself as she crept towards the bed. Scattered on the floor, she saw washcloths stained with blood, a sign that clearly he hadn't gotten much rest. And it was when she rounded the bed to try to steal a peak that she realized her concern was certainly not unfounded, nor was Pam's

 **Chapter 2**

She saw the grey sheets stained with dried blood and he looked terrible, though she knew he had healed perfectly well from the events a few days earlier. And as she leaned down to gently wipe blood form his ears, his eyes opened, fangs out and he grabbed her neck tightly before he realized who it was, quickly releasing his grip on her. "Sookie…why are you here?"

"You have people worried about you and I would think you'd realize that…..and I am pretty sure it isn't just Pam and I….I got texts from Willa and Arlene and….well, everyone that was at the complex when they tried to get the two of us out of that hellhole." she paused as she watched him roll onto his back, staring at the ceiling. Something was terribly off. "What is it? Nothing seems to bother you, not like this…." she went again to take a towel to dab the blood form his ears but he gently forced her hand away.

"I think you would be better off going home…..let the others know I am alive….."

"And starving, I can tell….you've not eaten since you got healed and granted you don't need a ton with how old you are-I know that much-but you can't just lay here, I am not leaving until you tell me what the problem is." she sat on the edge of the bed and as she did, he got up and started pacing, clad only in boxers. In any other circumstances, she would have savored the view but her heart was breaking for him.

He waited a moment before telling her the truth. "I couldn't get you out of there. I was…helpless. And I saw the pain you were in in those shackles and there wasn't anything I could do. You could have been killed and there wouldn't have been anything I could have done."

"So its about your price, your ego? You going all emo and pouty?" she said, almost amused but she kept her face sympathetic. She knew how prideful he was and he did savor being the one to save the day when it came to his loved ones. That he hated being and feeling helpless. That would not stand with him and she got it. She really did. But she had to get him out of this. "After everything that has happened in the last week….do you regret reuniting with me? Do you want me to walk away again, if you are so-"

His anger flared up and he rounded on her, eyes ablaze. "I can't give you the life you want….not entirely…..and I thought about it the night we got back from that hellhole, after I literally had the flesh cut from me. And even though we are in once piece now…I wanted to try to save you heartache and misery and look where we are again. Everyone expects me-I expect me-to be the strong one and its all I want to be…..with you, I feel like…." he furrowed his brow and didn't look like he wanted to say his true feelings. She understood him, she understood he had that macho streak about him that didn't want to look remotely vulnerable

"you're so good…yeah, you've done some things that haven't been pretty and god only knows that which you did before we met…..but I know your heart….it's a heart of gold, albeit perhaps a little tarnished. But you shouldn't feel like you have to keep things to yourself or that you feel shame for feeling what you do. I know you love that bad ass persona and trust me, you are very much one. One would be an idiot to doubt that or test that title. But you shouldn't be ashamed of the other side of you, a side I know you've struggled with showing and clearly, even after three years we were apart-"

"I did things during that time that would have shamed you….my family….my friends….both past and present. There was a few women who visited the bar…..two left alive but barely and the third….." he couldn't look at her. "It was fortunate she was a call girl and had no immediate family….though that didn't make me feel too much better after the fact. Pam did arrange for a burial, untraceable back to me. Still want to see the better side of me? I failed you by not being able to save you back there and you well know the bad things I am capable of doing…" he paused and had to admit the stark truth. "I have suffered for a very long time with guilt and I let that turn me into a monster…there is much you don't know of my past and if you did, you'd be smart to leave me again."

She said nothing and remembered that which she had done before, when her newly juiced up powers had allowed her to see into his mind, memories. Glimpses of a painful past were there but she wanted to know more, everything. "If I were to learn everything and accept it, would you accept that I do want you…all of you, like I say? I know there is dark in you but there is in me too. Let me see into your past, please. Then at least I can know everything."

He didn't say anything but gave her a intense look. "Be careful what you wish for, because I know there is more than enough in there that you are gonna wish you hadn't seen."

"I want to know everything about you if we are gonna have another shot." she replied sternly. "Sit on the bed." she ordered and he obliged, sitting beside him and then she gently put her hands gently on his temples and waited. And a few seconds later, she saw not the almost pitch dark around her, but images started appearing in her mind, as if watching a movie. And what she was getting into was something she would never be able to erase from her own mind.

 **TO BE CONTINUED**


	2. Chapter 2

**PART TWO**

 **Chapter 3**

It was a longer session this time and as such, the sensation was more intense, the virtual reality of it all as she saw scenes play out from the past. And though some of what she saw was indeed violent, she also saw flashes of the more gentle, loving side of him and seeing such a dichotomy, it was jarring but yet unsurprising to her, considering her past with him. Still, as she saw him in the past returning to a room where his family was massacred, he alone being alive, she felt that knife in her heart twist a little. And she jet seeing more death and misery along the way, though she did see, for the firs time, the night Pam had forced his hand and had turned her. Sookie known hardly any of that before and the information entering her brain, it was flying fast and furious and yet she was able to pick up on every memory, every feeling he had had at the time. By the time she had come to the present, she removed her hands and couldn't help notice the clock on her cell phone display. Three hours had passed. And as she let go, she saw he seemed a little haunted, out of it even. Bus a few seconds later, he seemed back with her and shook his head, as if shaking off the memories he had allowed her to see.

"I…..had no idea…and during the time we were separated for three years….you really hit bottom, even with the others trying to help you pull through….you….you really killed those other vamps in the always way….because you were-"

"They were inconsequential….they held no meaning to me and I needed to let loose." he replied, so matter of factly that she found herself becoming increasingly disturbed. "I felt like I had when I first was turned. Out of control and I just wanted…." he trailed off, showing some regret of his past actions. "They were transients, passing through, had no real connection from what Pam said after she helped dispose of the mess. She was my rock…..not that the other's didn't try but lets face it, who out of the group we know and care of knew me best? And even then, she has never known everything about me. Only you do now….well, most everything, from what I expect you saw in my memories. The fact is. [art of me liked it and even today, I am not entirely sorry for my actions. You know full well what I am and what I am capable of." she didn't know just what to say at that moment, knowing he was clearly doubting himself, and suffering for the events of the past and here in the present.

"I don't know what to say that can help make you feel better and even knowing the things you have done…..I know the good in you too and we have had a talk like this before. I don't blame you for not being able to get me out of that cell but the fact we are both here alive…that I was able to do the impossible because of…..us…how I feel about you. And I feel like you want the same thing and yet you are kind of pushing me away. I don't blame you…you have got to stop torturing yourself. You deserve to be happy. You are no saint. That is for sure….." she smiled as she caught him smirk back at her. "After looking back at my time with Bill, especially when he was dying and that I actually bedded him again…." she shook her head. "I am glad he found the peace he needed and I think we both know there was a good man in him too…..but I am also glad he's out of the picture, mean as that may sound. He did a number on me that almost rivaled my ex Ryan."

There was a silence and she knew she had struck more than a few nerves with him and she hated seeing him like this. A total mess and she understood why he had hid himself away from the world. She had also seen, in his memories, he had been similarly despondent while sick in France. Knowing the things she knew about him now, she couldn't blame him for having something of a meltdown. How she was going to snap him out of this, she hadn't a clue. But she knew she had no choice but to do so.

 **Chapter 4**

There was a long silence, nether one knowing where to go from here and she watched him lay down on the bed, clearly exhausted and showing the signs of it still, his ears bleeding and when she went to gently clean him up, he guided her hands away, firmly but gently, his back to her. "I don't know what I can do to help you and you're not making this easy…unless you really want to sever our relationship for good, I don't know where to go from here. I understand you better than almost anyone…save for Pam. And I know the closest people to you get it, you have had a crappy past for the most part and I cant imagine the losses you have had. What I saw though was at least you parents loved you and didn't fear you. My parents deaths, they hurt but I don't really miss them…..because they feared my powers, what I could do. And I am sorry they are gone but I have gained so much from their loss, from my own failings."

"I must be coming across as being weak….I don't like this feeling, I know I've said it before but it makes me feel...human. And though I have come to grips with what you have brought out of me, that I don't feel as…ashamed as I once did….the bottom like is that I prefer to feel in control, to be in control. And to be made to feel so helpless, emotional…..it does not sit well with me. And I don't want to be the reason you end up in that kind of trouble again…"

It was time to be blunt, she knew she would get a response to that, at least she hoped she would. Getting to her feet, she turned her back on him and said in a firm, almost cold tone. "Do you want me gone from your life again? If you worry so much about little old weak and helpless me? You know as well as I do there is always going to be people out there gunning for us and you know me, that I am not about to give up on anyone or anything just because we hit a snag. And I thought that was the type of guy you were. A warrior. A fighter. If your father or Godric could see you now, I think they would disown you. You embarrass them. And me, and everyone else you claim to care about. I. Am. Leaving." and she stormed from the room hoping her words would strike true. And yet, as she got closer and closer to leaving the house, she heard not a single sound behind her. And even when she reached the humid evening outside, she turned her head sideways, enough to glimpse the medieval styled door she had let close behind her and still, when she flashed past the gate to the door of her car, she still saw nothing. But then she felt something, a grip on her arm and in a flashing moment, she was spun around and forced to look at her assailant. She felt relief, and yet was cautious as she faced those eyes of his, so intense and full of life again and yet there was a haunted look that remained there too. He said nothing to her but the look on his face spoke volumes to her and offering her a hand, she accepted and he flew them right back to his room.

"I was wrong…..you have a knack of knocking the sense into me, either by faerie magic or by your words…..I never wanted this for you, to put you through more crap. That I know you don't need after everything."

She was silent and looked stoic for a moment and shook her head. "You don't need to be ashamed of how you feel. I know you love being …..well, the you you typically project. But lets face it, all your friends and family know better anyway, why hide it from them, or me, for that matter? I don't blame you for what happened, that you couldn't get me out of there. I never imagined that I would feel this powerful, to have this power through my veins. Its scary, really. But we are here now. Safe. And unless you can accept both sides of yourself as I have…I don't see how there is moving forward. That maybe I would return to my life as a waitress and try to get over you…again. And I can't deal with more loss now. Not after what Ryan made me lose."

"Something that I can't give you…." he pointed out as he searched her eyes in the soft lighting of the room. "there is something you may not have seen when you looked in my mind, something that perhaps was buried too deep…"

"Well, here is no way I could have seen everything in a few hours, I just kinda surfed." she said with a half smile. "Very strange. Which, of course, is my life." she laughed but that smile faded when she took in the look on his face.

"Money can buy a lot of things and I am….proud and…thankful for the fortune I have….but if I could trade it all to give you that which I know you want…what you almost had….I would give it all up without hesitation. When I learned what you lost…it reminded me of my own….something you may not have seen."

She genuinely looked surprised. "You don't mean-"

"There was a time I wanted more than you realized. Back in my former life."

 **Chapter 5**

She let him reveal the story to her and remained silent as he spoke. "I was not one to want to settle down and I know I was something of a disappointment to my parents, they wanted me to marry, to learn responsibility….and as much as I resisted, that I wanted to do whatever I wanted, when I wanted….after they were gone and I was the sole survivor, I realized what I lost. And after I was turned, I…."

She waited for him to continue and took his hands in hers. "Come on, out with it or I can just go in your mind and fish it out."

He sighed. "I became a literal monster…killing without remorse and back then, Godric was not the vampire you got to know so briefly. That I wound up like I am today is something of a miracle I guess, if I believed in those…..though perhaps I should, if you are here with me now. But through all the killing I did, I often had pangs of what my live could have been and the fact that deep down, I had wanted a family of my own, a woman of my own. Not just another notch in the scorecard that I had, there were plenty of those, I am sure you know. I always hoped, wanted, for something to not exactly replace my family, but to fill that void that had partially made me to fall so deep into the bloodlust that I fell into….it was never all my makers fault that I was how I was. Killing just...it took the pain away, took the edge off. And to this day, I often wonder what things would have been for me if they hadn't been killed, if those wolves hadn't ever come to our home that night…..though fate is strange and if I hadn't been turned then is so much I wouldn't have experienced, people I wouldn't have met. And I do like what I am, I savor it….but it is humbling to admit that which I am…deficient in."

Her heart ached for him it really did, thinking again on his own losses and as much as she knew he was proud to be what he was, that he savored his little slice of life in Shreveport, she knew he had always had something of a void inside, that he clearly tried compensating for it in many ways. "You have a family you know….friends, loved ones who are here for you. And I know nothing can replace the one you lost so long ago….I don't want you thinking you are ever alone. And I think if they could see you now, your family would be proud of you. I am proud of you, for what it is worth, you have evolved into someone I would….I would give my life for you, really, after all you've done for me and how I treated you in the past. Knowing what I know now, that you could have…." she shook off the haunted memories she had seen, all the close calls he had had. "I don't know why you put up with me, honestly, I was so dumb in the past. And in the present. To think I still clung on to hope for Ryan and I to have a chance…."

"I think we can agree that we have been pretty….unintelligent over the years…" he said, that sly smirk she once detested appearing on his face, to her relief, albeit cautious. "I would put myself together and get myself back to work but by the time I get there, last call and…..well, I'll let Pam know I will be in tomorrow. For the moment, I think I need to count my blessings and enjoy time with my "therapist", so to speak." he gave her a saucy look and she rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, you're feeling better, glad to help. But honestly, I am not feeling it tonight….." her smile faded as she thought back on her most devastating loss. "I want to have a family and I don't know….stranger things have happened and even if you and everyone else is all I ever have as far as a family goes, then I am really lucky." she snuggled close and pulled a thick comforter over them both and she didn't see the look on his face, not disappointment, not really. But it was the manifestation of the harsh truth that he could give her practically everything save for what she really wanted more than everything. He wondered if such a thing could ever happen, though he knew her scars were still quite fresh and raw and didn't press the issue. Difficult, as it was something he now realized more than ever he wanted too. For now, he knew he was fortunate to have her back again and for now, that would be enough. He couldn't help but wonder how long she would be enough for him, before she got to wanting a kid. Where once again, there would be that impasse. That fruit dangling out of both their grips should she somehow decided to remain with him. That was the last thought, worry he had before settling in with her where he found himself feeling fairly content for the first time in a long time. If only he could really give her everything…..

 **THE END**


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